Imagine being able to improve the health of North Carolina school kids to the tune of $250,000, and all you have to do is log on to your computer every day this month. Details in a moment; first, some quick introductions.

Be Active North Carolina. Be Active NC is a non-profit aimed at getting more North Carolinians off the couch and: a) into the gym, b) onto the trail, c) out on the playground, d) all of the above. Among its various programs is Just Push Play, the goal of which is to go into our schools and revive the notion that a kid who is receptive to learning is a kid who gets at least 60 minutes of physical activity a day.

Pepsi REFRESH Project. Pepsi is giving away up to $1.3 million a month in grants — in amounts of $5,000 to $250,000 — to “people, businesses, and non-profits with ideas that will have a positive impact” in the areas of health, arts & culture, food & shelter, “the planet,” neighborhoods and education. Every month beginning in February, Pepsi has accepted 1,000 ideas from individuals, businesses and non-profits. The following month, the ideas are put to a public vote on the Pepsi Refresh Web site. Winners for that month are announced at month’s end. In April, for instance, the Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation received $250,000 to develop an alternative cancer treatment with no side effects, while boosters of the Ben-Gil Elementary School in Illinois received $250,000 to rebuild their school, which was partially swallowed by an abandoned mine one weekend in March 2009.

As you know, there’s a childhood obesity epidemic in this country that is particularly profound in North Carolina: the state ranks 14th nationwide in the number of obese and overweight kids, with more than a third of our 18-and-under crowd falling into those categories, according to the Trust for America’s Health. Be Active NC is trying to lower our dubious nationwide profile with its Just Push Play program; this month, Be Active is in the running for one of the $250,000 Pepsi Refresh grants to expand the Just Push Play program.

Currently, Just Push Play is in eight schools in the state:  Rutherfordton Elementary  (Rutherford County), Thomasville Elementary (Davidson County), Underwood Elementary (Wake County), Lowe’s Grove Middle School (Durham County), Glenn Elementary School (Durham County), Brentwood Elementary  (Cumberland County), Contentnea-Savannah School  (Lenoir County) and Chatham Middle School (Chatham County).

How, specifically, the program works varies by school. Each school received $10,000 to buy playground equipment, to improve their gyms, to buy heart-rate monitors and pedometers — basically, whatever they need to reintroduce the notion of physical activity to our kids. In addition —

Sorry, but I need time for a quick vent. Every time I write that line — “reintroduce the notion of physical activity to our kids” — I nearly pop a blood vessel. Back in the day, the teachers let us out once in the morning for recess, then turned us over once in the afternoon to a PE teacher to whom “PE” meant “Painful Education.” But we always returned to the classroom with tired bodies and alert minds. It’s just common sense: Let a kid burn off all that extra energy of that comes with being a kid and he/she is much more likely to remember when the Spanish American war was or how — Heaven help me — to diagram a sentence. Quick primal scream: AAHHHHHHHHH! There. Better. Back to our regularly scheduled post …

—  Be Active NC works with the schools to change a culture that encourages dodging sweat instead of dodging dodge balls.

If Be Active NC’s Just Push Play proposal gets enough votes and scores $250,000 through Pepsi Refresh, Jodi Hubble, Be Active’s Director of Development and Communications, says they’ll be able to extend Just Push Play to 20 schools statewide. That’s 20 schools where the notion of more activity = happier, smarter kids has a better chance of becoming reality.

But Be Active’s proposal, which it put together with the help of the ‘nPlay Foundation, nplayfoundation.org/ needs your help. Currently, it ranks just 119th out of the ideas submitted for June. The good news is that it’s only June 5 — there are 26 voting days remaining. In the spirit of Al Capone politics, Pepsi Refresh allows you to vote, if not early, then at least often — once a day, in fact. All you have to do is go here, press the “Vote for this idea” button. You’ll have to register (or you can connect through your Facebook page). Then go to your digital calendar of choice, instruct it to remind you to vote everyday for the rest of the month, and for the next 25 days, take 25 seconds to vote for fit, happy kids.

And don’t treat it like a primary or a runoff election: North Carolina’s sedentary students need your votes.

Photo: Imagine what Bart Simpson could do if Principal Skinner would only give him recess.